New to the retreat this year, members of the Technology in Action Committee took the initiative to demonstrate the flexibility and unique capabilties of the Angel Learning Management System (LMS) currently being used at CDL.  Members of the CID group were called upon to present alternative content design approaches using the Angel LMS.

Highlights included presentations on the following content design approaches in Angel:

The Easter Egg

The Graphic Organizer

The Taskbar

The Humanities Desktop

Dr. Nicola Martinez, then Director of Curriculum and Instructional Design at CDL, also gave a brief overview of processes related to the infusion of creative design elements in courses, and encouraged faculty from all areas of study to continue collaboration with the CID group and promote ongoing innovation in courses offered by CDL.

Empire State College participated in the annual Saratoga ArtsFest in June 09 with its exhibit Art Across Boundaries: Virtually Real and Really Virtual.

This event used the Second Life platform to simultaneously feature artists performing at the festival while their Second Life avatar broadcast their performance in real time through Second Life at the 28 Union building on ESC Island. Taking advantage of the global use of SL, the event began with classically trained vocalist Jaynine Scarborough (Juliane Gabreil) performing live in Germany, while her music streams live in Second Life through her virtual avatar. Large projection screens allow an audience in Saratoga to watch the Second Life avatars performances, while participants in Germany could watch the live performance and the SL performance.

Next, professional Argentine tango dancers David Wolf, of the Saratoga SAVOY, and Jackie Lin Wong of TangoPulse  performed several dances ranging from the traditional melody ‘Lo Pasado Paso’ by Fransisco Canaro to the more contemporary ‘Cuoro Sacro’ by Andrea Guerra. Finally, the event ended with Sonny and Perley  performing international cabaret. Their performance included Perley singing Brazilian melodies in Portugeuse, French melodies, as well as songs in English.

The event was held at the Empire State College (ESC) Alumni House, at 28 Union location in Saratoga Springs, and the  ESC Alumni House virtual counterpart. The virtual audience included members from three continents.